Africa visit for church members
CHRISTIANS from Tanzania could be regularly coming to Burbage as two ambassadors from a church go on a visit to the African country. St Catherine’s Church is sending church warden Clem Morrison and Vicky Gilbert as part of a group of seven from Leicester Diocese on a ten-day visit to the Diocese of Mount Kilimanjaro (DMK). The focus of the visit will be to develop links between church schools in the African diocese and church schools in Leicester Diocese. The group also plan to forge links with the Church Building Programme in DMK which supports Bishop Stanley’s intentional church planting Strategy. Father Andrew Hall, rector at St Catherine’s, said: “It all began when I was inducted to the post of rector her in Burbage and Aston Flamville in 2015. “The Bishop said in conversation that a place like Burbage would do well to develop a link with Tanzania.
“Having previous experience of a link in my last post in Brighouse, I set to work and asked the congregation to pray about it.
“We decided to raise money and send two people to Tanzania to see if we could build up a parish link and support the work over there.
“Hopefully this will be the start of a fruitful link between us.
“Reaching out to help those less fortunate than ourselves is a key part of the Christian life. We will no doubt be in for an enriching experience ourselves.”
If the visit goes well, St Catherine’s may set up regular visits to Tanzania and for people from there to come over here
Father Hall said: “The long-term aim would be to encourage both the church, schools and local community to become involved. “Who knows what we could do together?” The fact-finding visit is happening at the end of May.